ItllOCEEBINGS OF THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF LONDON. 427 



atmospheric eftects, but still most beautiful. The land between the 

 shore and the glaciers is the abode of reindeer, musk-oxen, wolves, 

 bears, foxes, hares, and lemmings ; of ravens, falcons, owls, ptarmigan, 

 willow-grouse, snow-buntings, dotterels, and phalaropes ; while 

 aquatic birds come in tens of thousands to breed in the crags and 

 islands. Above all, so far as means of existence is concerned, the 

 open pools and lanes of water are crowded with seals, walruses, 

 white whales, narwhals ; and these again betoken the existence of 

 fish, molluscs, and minute marine creatures in myriads. Here, then, 

 is a region where man, too, might find subsistence, and here, too, 

 accordingly, we find hardy tribes, numbering 140,000 souls, distri- 

 buted in some eight or more permanent w^inter settlements. In 

 summer they pitch their tents wherever they are likely to find the 

 best hunting grounds. This remarkable tribe is decidedly, the author 

 considers, of Asiatic affinities. Their winter habitations mark them 

 as a peculiar people, quite distinct from the Esquimaux of America ; 

 for while the latter always live in snow huts, the '* Arctic Highlanders" 

 build structures of stone. These stone " igloos," though quite un- 

 like the winter homes of the American Esquimaux, are precisely the 

 same as the ruined " Yourts" on the northern shores of Siberia, and 

 as the ruins found in all parts of the Parry Islands. They thus 

 furnish one of the several clues which point to Siberia as the original 

 home of these people. 



2. "On the Esquimaux." By Dr. John Eae. There are few 

 races of men about whom a greater diversity of opinion has been 

 expressed than the Esquimaux. By some WT:'iters they have been 

 described as stupid, slow, dirty, lazy, false, and idle — in fact, little if 

 at aU raised above the brute creation. By others, who possibly may 

 have had opportunities of seeing these people on a different part of 

 the coast, in all their various relations to each other, in their every- 

 day life, and at all seasons of the year — for the winter is the time^ 

 w^hen the Esquimaux is seen to most advantage, and winter with him 

 forms two-thirds or three-fourths of the year — a higher position has 

 been assigned to them amongst their fellow men. Having visited 

 the Danish settlements in Grreenland, Churchill, in Hudson's Bay, 

 the mouths of the Copper-mine and McKenzie Eivers, on the Arctic 

 coast, and passed two seasons at Eepulse Bay, and seen the Esqui- 

 maux at aU those places, the author had had opportunities of noticing 

 and comparing their peculiarities. The lands southward of Churchill, 

 in lat. 59°N., having been claimed by the Indians, the Esquimaux 



